Revolution
by SoConfusified
Summary: Bookverse. Multichap. Elphaba's reaction to the death of Nessarose and a look at how she may have dealt with those emotions. Mild bookverse expansion-- rated T to be safe. Title subject to change. Please read and review!
1. Chapter 1

I have finally managed to wake my muse from a college-essay-induced coma, though this wasn't at all what I had in mind, hopefully I'm not too rusty. Enjoy!

This work is hereby disclaimed.

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Elphaba stared at the hastily scribbled message that Chistery had brought to her, apparently having arrived by carrier pigeon earlier that morning, her mind only registering a single phrase.

_Nessie's dead._

Shell's untidy scrawl continued a good length down the page, snatches of words broke through the muddled fog --Tornado--memorial service --a date of some sort-- yet still came back to those same two words. They simply refused to be processed, like a broken record.

_Nessie's dead._

_Dead._ She was fixated on it; that single word echoing within her. Unbidden and unwelcome, long buried memories rose to the forefront of her mind: Doctor Dillamond with a blood noose about his neck, half covered in a scarlet shroud. The sickening reek of a shadowy corn exchange, the floorboards slick and stained with Fiyero's blood. Crimson splashed across Lurlinemas snow…emerald hands…

Her stomach turned at the sudden onslaught of memory and she fought the urge to retch, forcing down the bitter pain of her failures that rose like bile in her throat, forcing back the burning moisture that assaulted her eyes. She willed herself back to the present, back to the stone and reality of Kiamo Ko, desperate to be free of these visions of agony and death.

Without a word, she crumpled the paper between her boney fingers.

There would be time to mourn later. For now, there was still work to be done.

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A little short, I know. There's more though, I promise!

Reviews make my day less crappy.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Part 2 as promised, my pretties! Hopefully with term winding down I'll be able to write much more frequently. Happy Holidays to you all (Lurlinemas included) if this is not the case.

This 'chapter' was inspired by "503" from the Angels and Demons soundtrack-- if not for the beautiful images that song conjured, this writing would not exist.

**I own nothing.**

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No one noticed Elphaba as she stepped from the sill of the tower window and out into the darkness, her hat waiting patiently on the bedside table. She would not need it this night.

The grief and pain at her sister's death had settled in her heart like a stone, the unwelcome memories that had stirred within her raged like a tempest in her mind. Tonight, she was determined to be free of them.

She rose into the sky, black cape billowing behind her like a great cloud, nearly indistinguishable from darkness that surrounded her, relishing in the feeling of the world falling away into the void below. Higher and higher she flew, spiraling upward, until there was only the vast unchanging blackness of Night. The wind whipped almost painfully about her in a frenzy that echoed the torment within, the chill night air cutting her to the bone. She welcomed them both, pain and numbing cold, anything to be free of the agony of her twisted, wretched life. The pain was her penance, punishment for her failures, for all the death that had plagued her since the day she had been born-- an anomaly, an _aberration_--into the world. Higher still she flew, though the broom shook in protest beneath her. She willed herself upward, hardly caring if she was dashed to pieces on the vaults of the night.

Only here, in this place of night and wind and stars and unbridled_ power_ did she allow herself to mourn, to shed tears as she had not done in _years_. The torrent of air dashed them away before the pain of their burning could assail her, whipping the dark curtain of her long-freed wildly around her. She wept for them all, for Doctor Dillamond and Fiyero and Nessarose and Sarima and her family, and the absolution that would now be forever withheld. Tears of grief, anger, and hatred all ran together in a tangled mess of emotion amidst the howling rush of air, her shrieks of anguish and rage lost in the roaring of the wind. In this hurricane or air, she was entirely insignificant. As unremarkable as a speck of dust on the stone floors of Kiamo Ko, useless as she had been in every campaign she had undertaken, wholly at the mercy of the wind.

Yet despite her failings, she would rise again as she always had. Despite the death that had been strewn in her path, she would go on. It was her anger at the injustice of the world that fueled the fires of her heart. It was not in her to surrender, to submit to another's will.

She was the embodiment of Resistance.

She was Revolution itself.

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Reviews appreciated! Brightest Blessings to you all this holiday season. :)


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